


Time doth run with calm and silent foot

by Kaesteranya



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-03
Updated: 2011-05-03
Packaged: 2017-10-18 22:37:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/194061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesteranya/pseuds/Kaesteranya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the eve of the last battle they'll ever fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time doth run with calm and silent foot

**Author's Note:**

> This one was written for the prompt “the concept of omerta” / “almost deaf in the glare of the white sand ahead, the tiny gladiator, stuffing her shadow in her mouth as she goes”.
> 
> The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for February 28, 2008.

She likes to think that it happened too fast, too fast for her to react. She tells herself that it was one of those things born out of blinking at the wrong moment, because she was sure – she swore – that Rokudo Mukuro was the one person whom she would not, could not, stop watching. What she would only later admit was that it had, in fact, started slow, a painful wrenching, twisting out of her grip moment by moment, finger by finger, up and out of her hands.

 

“The half-breed recently contacted me. It appears as though Vongola is finally beginning to make all the right connections.”

 

There is nothing but the two of them and the dream around them: the hot sand beneath her bare feet, the distant cry of seagulls and the constant crashing of the waves against rock and shore. She perceives everything, every grain against her skin and every shift in the scent of brine and broken shells carried by the wind – their corner of the dream world has always been her home, even more than the reality she leaves every time she closes her eyes. There are times when she wonders which world is more real, for colors and sensations always seem brighter in the palace of her own dreams.

 

“They are moving, Nagi. It’s only a matter of time now.”

 

He smiles at her, all lightness and grace to counteract the dizzying effect of mismatched eyes and a voice that never carries any real warm or amusement. She acknowledges the gesture with a respectful dip of her head. She wonders when he took to calling her by her first name rather the name he made for her, and the endearments he often lavished upon her whenever they were together. There are other things that she wonders about: why he chose a shoreline over their usual hidden lake, where he had been during his sudden and most recent disappearance, when will he decide that it was time for them to meet again.

 

Their regular meetings in the dream world used to be their ritual, the concrete acknowledgement of that which bound them together. They seemed to occur less frequently as the years went on, in tandem with the fact that she found herself lurking within the shadows of her own mind more often, watching her master walk at the side of Sawada Tsunayoshi through the split screen of their shared existence. He used to chafe at the very thought of being in the same room as the boy. As it was, she could no longer measure how long it had been since she had last heard him say anything negative about the Tenth and his pathetically human ways.

 

“…Can I trust you, Nagi? Will you do as I have asked you to do?”

 

 _When did you decide to stay?_

 _How did you fall in love with him?_

 _Will you leave us behind?_

 _If you go, will you let me follow you?_

 

She feels the need to answer his questions with other questions. She knows full well that she is a vessel but she possesses her own mind, and that he keeps her around precisely because he has allowed her to speak. She remains silent, however, and simply watches her master as he walks ankle-deep through the waves, a black-and-white figure against the brilliance of an imagined shoreline.

 

She remains silent not because she fears that he will not answer her, but because she knows that he will.


End file.
